


Detour

by elevenoclock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elevenoclock/pseuds/elevenoclock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal is casing the Tate for an upcoming job when he first hears about the legend. “It can’t be stolen,” his fence in London tells him. </p><p>“Anything can be stolen,” Neal says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hllangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hllangel/gifts).



> I asked Hannah to give me two random fandoms to crossover. She gave me White Collar and Harry Potter. Thanks for making a very boring day at work go by a little faster! Written in under an hour, unbeta'ed.

Neal is casing the Tate for an upcoming job when he first hears about the legend. “It can’t be stolen,” his fence in London tells him. Neal likes the guy just fine—though he’s no Mozzie—but he’s eager to get back to the States and to working with his regular crew. Still, the words catch his attention. 

“Anything can be stolen,” he says.

The fence is an older gentleman called George (though Neal knows that’s not his real name), who’s obviously been in the business for a while. “A dozen of the world’s finest have gone after it,” he says. “Every single one of them failed. Some of them came back after missing for three days, looking like they’d wandered through a forest, with no memory of their trip.”

Now Neal is intrigued. “What is it?” he asks.

“A sword,” George says. “A sword with rubies in the hilt, dates back to the medieval period.” He frowns. “You’re not thinking about going after it, are you lad?”

Neal shrugs nonchalantly. “Nah,” he says. “Just curious. A sword that can’t be stolen, sounds like a fairy tale.”

“Oh, there’s a tale behind it, alright,” George begins. “They say it’s in an old, ruined castle up in Scotland. Just sitting up in the tallest tower, probably covered in dust. Some say they’ve met a groundskeeper, a giant of a man, who guards the castle to make sure no one gets in, but there’s no security other than that.”

“That’s interesting,” Neal says, smiling politely. His mind is racing, but his face gives nothing away. “Alright, let’s talk about this buyer that you’ve found for the Bacon painting.”

A week later, the painting is liberated from the Tate, George has his percentage, the buyer is extremely happy, and Neal has a train ticket to Scotland instead of a plane ticket to La Guardia.

He’s picked up a few other pointers by asking around, and Kate scoured the internet for him, looking for any information she can find. He calls her from the train station in Edinburg.

“The information I found is pretty sketchy,” Kate says, “but I’m pretty sure you want to head north. There’s a village somewhere up there that’s not on any map, but I found mention of it being near a lake. It sounds like the castle is on the other side of the lake, with a forest in between… and there’s a lake north of you that fits the description.”

“I love you,” Neal responds after she gives him directions.

“I know you do,” Kate says, and he can hear her smiling through the phone. “Now go bring home that sword and piss off a bunch of stuffy English thieves. I’ll see you soon.”

Neal hangs up and sets about finding a train that will take him north.

It turns out that there isn’t a train that goes to the lake Kate found, but Neal finds a sheep farmer who’s willing to take him most of the way. “Not sure why you want to go to that lake,” the farmer says. “It’s all flies and marshes around, and some ‘round here believe it’s haunted.”

“I’m on summer break, just want to go hiking through the wild.”

The farmer shrugs and grunts, but he drops him on the side of the road and points the direction Neal should go. “About three kilometers that way, you’ll see the lake,” he says. “Good luck.”

It’s July, and surprisingly hot in northern Britain, but Neal sets out with determination. The farmer’s directions are good, and he can spot a sliver of blue on the horizon before too long. 

He can also see something in the distance that might be a town, but it’s oddly fuzzy, like a heat wave is resting over it.

His cell phone rings as he approaches the edge of the forest, eager to get into the shade. His phone flickers in his hand, but it answers with a squawk of static when he hits the ‘talk’ button. 

“Neal?” It’s Kate, but her voice sounds distant, and the phone looks like it’s about to die. “… forest… don’t…” the static overwhelms her words.

“What?” he asks.

“Don’t go… forest…” she says. “… around…”

The phone dies with a hiss. 

When the phone won’t turn back on, Neal glances down at his watch; the second hand is no longer ticking. An EMP device of some kind, he thinks. 

But he heard enough of Kate’s message to get the gist of it. With a sigh and lungful glance at the cool shade, he turns and heads along the outside of the forest, following it in the direction the castle should be.

It’s another hour before he hits something like a breeze in the air that doesn’t belong. He has a sudden thought… _is there somewhere else I need to be?_

The thought grows stronger as he continues to walk, nagging at the back of his mind. He feels like he’s forgotten something, like he needs to head back to London. Is it the job? No, he’s completed that, and the money is wired to one of his Swiss accounts. What about New York? Was there something to do there?

Neal shakes his head to clear it. He has a job to do, and he’s never failed on a job yet.

The castle appears almost as though it came out of nowhere. One second he’s cresting a hill on the other side of the forest, and the next there’s a massive stone castle looming over him.

The entire place looks abandoned, but there’s a hut to his left with smoke rising out of the top of it. Neal ducks down behind a boulder, watching the hut warily. This must be the home of the groundskeeper that George mentioned.

It will be sunset soon, and Neal wants to get out of there before nighttime. He eyes the doors of the castle, strong oak and iron barring his path, and then spots an open window on the ground floor.

Inside the castle is cool and quiet and… surprisingly dust free. In fact, it looks as though the castle is still in use, although George had seemed certain that it was abandoned. There are tapestries on the wall, richly embroidered and in prime condition. Paintings litter the walls, all of them well preserved. He wanders the halls, taking in the portraits and suits of armor, and feels the back of his neck prickle as though he’s being watched.

There’s a large stone gargoyle at the end of the hallway, and Neal spots the crack around its edge just before passing it by. A hidden doorway!

But no matter how much he pushes or pulls, the doorway doesn’t budge. There’s no hidden switches, no levers, no secret latches to undo. He finally stops, sweating from the exertion. 

“Not giving up until I hit the payday on this stupid sword,” he mutters.

The door swings open without warning.

Neal scrambles back, wishing there was something to hide behind. But no one comes out of the door, and there’s no sign of a camera or audio device that might have detected his presence.

“I’ve come this far,” he says, “might as well go all the way.”

There’s a winding staircase behind the door, which leads up to the floor above. Neal climbs the stairs and stops at an oak door. There’s a brass knocker, which is way too polished to have been unused recently. 

Cautiously, Neal pushes the door open.

There’s a man sitting in the room behind a large desk. He has long white hair and a white beard that flows into his lap. Blue eyes twinkle as they catch sight of Neal, and Neal has the feeling that this man has been waiting for him.

“Come in, Mr. Caffrey,” the old man says.

Neal swallows, and obeys. 

The door closes behind him on its own.

“Please, have a seat,” the man gestures. “Can I interest you in a cup of tea? A scone, perhaps?”

Neal hovers behind the chair, taking in the windows (too high up to jump), the door behind the desk (which looks to lead into a windowless room), and the door behind him (firmly locked, Neal would guess). He’s trapped.

“Are you going to call the cops?”

The man laughs. “No, Mr. Caffrey. I will not be calling the authorities on you. Please, sit, you’ve had a long journey, and the scones are quite good, I assure you.”

Neal sits slowly. With his escape firmly discouraged, he takes in the office. Paintings cover the walls, but there are dozens of devices that catch his eye as well. Silver glints from one shelf, and gold from another; a sextant sits propped against a shelf of books that are crumbling at the spine. 

“What is this place?” Neal asks, because obviously it’s not an abandoned ruin like George told him.

The man smiles. “That’s not your concern right now,” he says. Something red catches Neal’s eye, glinting in the sunlight above the man’s head. The man’s smile widens. “Ah, I see you found what you came for.”

It is, indeed, the sword that George had described. It’s easily fifty pounds of polished gold and steel, with rubies covering the surface of the hilt. It’s beautiful. It’s also completely out of Neal’s reach.

“We’ve never had any of your kind get this far,” the man says. 

“My kind?” Neal asks.

The man gives him that smile again. Neal’s starting to get sick of it. “We hoped it might be you who succeeded. Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Caffrey.” He clears his throat, takes a sip of his tea. “I would like to offer you a bit of employment.”

“What?” The change in subject startles Neal, throws him completely off balance. “A job? What kind of job?”

“You must agree it to accept the work, before I can tell you what it is,” the old man says.

“And if I decline?”

The man shrugs. He’s wearing, Neal notices now, heavy velvet robes. “Then you will leave this office and return to your home in America and not remember anything about this conversation.”

Neal has a lot of self-preservation, but he has a lot more curiosity. “Will it be dangerous?” he asks.

“Oh, no. In fact, I suspect it will be rather mundane, after a while,” comes the response. “But I can promise you that it will be unlike any job you’ve ever taken, and the rewards will be great.”

Well, that seals the deal. “Alright,” Neal says.

“We have some… rather unique paintings in this castle, as I’m sure you saw. Many of them are very old, and have not, I’m sorry to say, been kept in the best conditions.” The man’s eyes twinkle. “We need someone to restore them to their original conditions.”

“What’s the catch?” Neal asks, because there’s always a catch, and this job is shrouded in too much mystery and secrecy for the catch not to be a big one.

The painting on the wall behind the old man moves. It actually _moves_ , and Neal can’t process what he’s seeing for a moment. And then it talks. “The catch,” the painting says (it’s _talking_ , his mind screams), “is that some of those paintings are gossipy old hags—quite literally, don’t look at me like that, Headmaster—and will likely try to convince you to paint them with better features or new,” a cough, “companions.”

“Ah, Phineas,” the old man says, “you should give them the benefit of the doubt.”

The portrait sneers.

“It’s talking,” Neal says. “Your, um. Your painting. It talks.”

“Oh, yes,” the man says. “That would be the ‘catch’, as you put it. This is not an abandoned castle, as you’ve noticed. In fact, it is a school. A school of magic. I am Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and I am very pleased to meet you.”

Neal blinks. He’s been in the underground community for enough of his life that he’s heard rumors, seen things that don’t sense, but this… “Magic doesn’t exist,” he says.

“Oh, I assure you it does,” the Headmaster says, pulling a wand from his sleeve and levitating the tea tray to a side table. “Now, let’s discuss this job, shall we?”

Dumbledore pauses, and then adds, “Oh, and I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to return that goblet that you’ve tucked into your coat pocket, Mr. Caffrey.”


End file.
